Change of Perspective
by Stretch
Summary: A look at the world through the eyes of hidden mutants, leading ordinary lives. How they view themselves, their powers, and the ever changing world around them. A series of unique one-shots. Check it out, you might like it! Please R&R!!
1. Caddyshack Is A Lie!

A/N: Hey everyone.  I stared writing this series of one-shots because I've always wondered about the other mutants out there.  The ones who don't leave home and don't join a vigilante group.  You know, how they see the world, how there mutations affect their lives.  And that's how the change of perspective series was born.  Please note that these are not OC stories.  The characters won't be in more than one shot and they won't join the X-Men.  They are just meant to be the vessels through which we look at their worlds.  Our first subject is a teenage boy, working a job over his summer vacation.  So now that you know how this deal's going down, enjoy.

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            Welcome to Four Pines Country Club: Where Bigotry and Racism run wild.  Okay, so that's not our real motto here, but it should be.  Seriously, if you ever want a degrading job, come work for a CC.  It blows.  Trust me, I know.  Caddies don't exactly get a lot of respect around her.  You should also apply for a job at a country club if you have a passion for doing physical labor for rich, pompous, balding, fat guys who have nothing better to do than count their millions and golf every…damn…day!

            I'm not employed here by choice, as you can probably tell.  No, I'm here for her.  Who is she, you're probably wondering.  Well, she is 22lbs of beautifully sculpted, fire engine red, hand-painted titanium.  She is a 42cc, 2 stroke engine capable of reaching speeds of up to 30 mph.  She is the motorized dream of every 13 year old I know.  She is the XC505GT2 Tornado Motorized Scooter.  And for too long has she been displayed in that window of the bike shop on Parkway Drive, just sitting there and taunting me.  So one day I decided I had to make her mine.  I had to become $600 dollars richer, I had to be proactive.  I had to get a job.  Hence how I ended up here. 

            Ah, the things I do for Wanda (for that will be my scooter's name, once I make her my own).  

            Want to ever experience real anger?  Try standing there, lugging around a hundred pounds of expensive titanium for a man, only to hear him rambling on about how much better off the world would be if you got sucked back into the evolutionary pit that created you.  See, cause next to homosexuals, and illegal immigrants, Mr. Hoffernan's (the slime-ball that requests me as caddy every time he golf's) favorite minority group to bitch about are mutants.  I have, on many occasions, fought down the urge to hit him with a golf cart while his back is turned.  Or steal the hood ornament off of his Mercedes.

            One or the other. 

            Oh yeah, I just enjoy feeling really degrading.  And the money's not even that good, but it's better than having no job at all.  I wonder, sometimes, about what might happen if this Mutant Registration Act passes.  What the people at work might say if they ever learned that, for all this time, their latest minority target was sitting right under their noses.  Cleaning their clubs for them, listening to everything they said.  Sullying the good name of their exclusive, three martini a day, lick my boots for me, club.  I figure that moment would be pretty amusing; a real shot for the little guy, you know?  

            Personally, I don't get the whole 'country club' deal.  Why it's better to let some people join and not others.  But I'm a fairly open minded person, see.  I have to be.  My aunt is African American, and I have two bi-racial cousins from that branch of the family.  They live up in New York, where my Uncle writes.  That's my Dad's side.  On my Mom's side, I have a homosexual second cousin.  In fact, I attended his and his partner's 'bonding ceremony' last fall.  So, like I said, I have a pretty open minded view of the world.  Life's too short to worry about stuff like that, I figure.  

            So maybe that's why, to me, being a mutant isn't that big of deal.  I guess most people don't share my easy going view of the situation, though.  Especially around this joint.  The most gratifying thing about my job, the one thing that makes it bearable, is that I have dirt on almost everyone here.  For example, I know that Mr. Hoffernan's three iron has been at the bottom of the water hazard on 11 several times during it's ownership.  I know that Burgess's dropped his wallet when he was visiting his 'other woman' three days ago, the same way he dropped it outside the Pro Shop yesterday.  You can see where I'm going with this.  Like I said, there are some very lucrative advantages.  

            My gift, if you will, is…well, pretty stupid, and fairly lame.  But I get a kick out of it.  What happens is when I touch something, any inanimate object, I cam see it's history inside my head.  I can see where the object's been, who it's been handled by, when it was made.  Stuff like that.  There's no big flash.  I don't go into convulsions or anything when it happens.  The knowledge is just there like a file stored in my brain.  A file full of images and smells and sounds, but a file none the less.

            It first started happening when I was younger.  Nine, maybe ten years old.  At first it was random, happening once and a while, out of the blue.  Now it happens constantly.  Yeah, that's right.  I get data from everything I touch, and trust me, that gets pretty old after a while.  Most times now I don't bother to even mentally access the information I acquire.  That's one recent development that I'm thankful for.  Not so long ago I had to mentally process every bit of data I got, whether or not I wanted to.  Now I can just unconsciously store most of the useless details.

            And access only the stuff that's good for blackmail :)

            I worry sometimes about what might happen in the future, to us, the mutant population.  It's weird thinking that, the mutant population.  See, cause while I know there are others out there, like me, I've never actually met one.  It's kinda daunting sometimes, the isolation.  But most times it's the furthest thing from my mind.  I don't like to focus on the negative much.  My glass is usually half-full.  

            Except on days like today.

            "Okay, Hoffernan's foursome: Hoff, Burgess, Williamson Jr., and Polluck.  Teeing off at 8:04.  Chase caddies: Rick, Alex, and Eddie." 

             Shit, why me?  Does that man enjoy making my life a living nightmare?  Is he just that evil?

            "Eddie, did you hear me?"  

            'No, I've gone spontaneously deaf.  Get someone else to run around after that cheap bastard,' I say inside my head.  But my real response is,

            "Yeah, yeah.  I'm going."  I pull my ass up and jog off after Rick and Alex.  'It's all for her,' I remind myself as I round the Pro Shop and spy Hoff, smoking a stogie and scratching his Jello-jiggler butt.  'All for the bike.  Plus if Hoff drops of another cheap tab, his wife just might learn of last week's little strip club incident…'

            Yeah, being 'gifted' defiantly has its perks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~            A/N: There, now tell me what you think by hitting that little purple button down there.  I don't mind flames (just no death threats please) but please leave a review cause if I don't know what you guys think, then I won't know how to continue.  Push the button!!


	2. Somewhere Between The Truth and Me

            "You piece of scum," I screeched, clearing the table before me with a sweep of my arm, "you keep this up, I swear I won't rest until you get life."

            "Look, I said I don't know where she," the man across the table muttered sullenly.

            Lie!

            That was it.  I flew out of my chair and covered this distance between us in two, long strides.  Before he knew it, I had the pervert thrown against the wall, collar in gripped so tightly between my fists that my knuckles were white.

            "You listen to me, asshole!" I shouted, shaking him for emphasis.  "She is seven years old!  She is an innocent little girl!  And so help me God, you're going to tell me what you did with her, or you're going to find yourself dead so quick you're ghost's gonna have whiplash!"  Then I slammed his head back against the wall for good measure, completely ignoring the fact that my co-workers were trying to pry us apart, shouting to one another over my threats.  

            Finally, my partner Avery wedged his way between us.  With his hand on my chest, he forced us apart.

            "Viv, go cool off!" he shouted above the din as someone grabbed my arms and pulled me away from behind.  I jerked myself free and stormed through the clutter of people gathering to see what the disturbance was about.  Without a backward glance, not even when my supervisor demanded one, I marched straight out of the precinct and into the alley behind. 

            The march weather was harsh and biting, especially through my white cotton blouse.  I shuddered and shivered, wishing I hadn't left my blazer on my desk chair as usual, but I wasn't ready to go back in and get it either.  Deep down I felt that I deserved the discomfort I was in.  Not just for that stunt back there, but for everything.  For every innocent that I couldn't save…and for every guilty piece of trash that walked away cause of charges I couldn't make stick.  I know what you're thinking: I shouldn't have become a detective if I couldn't handle the guilt that sometimes goes with it.  But you don't understand…

            My uncle Rich was a motorcycle cop in Pittsburgh for most of his life.  He and my Aunt Margaret never had children, though they both desperately wanted them.  She was unable to conceive, my parents later told me.  Maybe it was because I was the next best thing to having his own daughter that my uncle spoiled me so much.  He'd come roaring up on his bike, in full uniform, couple of times a week, despite the twenty minute drive between his place and ours.  He'd parade me around on the back of that thing, taking me on wild rides through the hub and hustle of the city, showing me that there was so much more to life than my one suburban neighborhood contained.  

            Rich became like a second father to me.  He was at every soccer game, every school concert, every mile stone in my young life.  When I was 10 he came and picked me up one summer evening, telling me there was a new ice cream parlor that opened near his house and he needed an expert to help him discover if it was any good or not.  I just giggled and climbed on behind him, same as always.  But that night was not to be as routine as the rest, because that was the night when I finally realized what I wanted to do.  That night, over a hot fudge sundae, I confessed to my uncle that I wanted to be a cop.  A police officer, just like he was.  And Rich, he swore to me that when I finished school, if that's what I decided to do with my life, he would walk me off the stage when I graduated from the academy.  He promised…and I believed him.  After all, why shouldn't I have?  He was always there, a part of my life…until suddenly he wasn't…  

            It was a routine traffic stop on a busy Friday night.  Two teens in a car, driving too fast and paying too little attention on the freeway just outside the city.  Officer Rich, parked on his bike under a viaduct, pulled them over.  He was standing by their window, checking a registration number, when the truck hit.  It wasn't the driver's fault.  Semis can't maneuver that well, and in the darkness he couldn't have seen my uncle, just on the edge of the shoulder, until it was too late.  There was nothing anybody could do.  It was just an accident.

            Uncle Rich's body was still alive when the paramedics arrived, but his mind was gone.  For three weeks he laid in the hospital in a vegetative state before my aunt finally pulled the plug.  A little boy in Vermont needed a liver, and my Uncle was a perfect match.  I guess she felt that if something good could come from the tragedy than it should.  Everyone went and said their goodbyes that night; the night before they turned the ventilator off.

            Everyone except me.

            I was at home, hiding in a corner of our attic, crying my eyes out.  He'd lied to me.  He'd promised he'd be there to walk me off that stage, but he wouldn't be!  He'd promised…and he'd broken it!  He'd lied…  My heart withered inside my chest as I laid there and sobbed, while my uncle lay dying, cut off from his machines.  And it was then that it happened.  Utterly destroyed and alone, something inside me broke and fact or fiction suddenly took on a whole new meaning.  

            I saw lies, literally.  They clouded the aura like pollution over San Francisco, a sickly red in color.  They smelled like fresh spilt blood and hung thick around the body, hovering for a long time.  I saw truth too.  The truth appeared as a flesh-colored mist, emanating from every pore and dissipating quickly.  Thought my uncle's death, I had become something new, and as much as it scarred me, I took it as a sign.  This…this was my Uncle's way of telling me that my job was supposed to be finding truth and justice.  That I was to stick to the path I'd chosen despite his absence.  And I did, but it wasn't easy.

            Growing up, knowing the falsities behind every white lie is a terrible thing.  You never see the shades of gray, just the painful black and white.  That's a tough way to see things as a kid.

            "No, don't worry sweetie.  I love the gift."

                                                            Lie.

            "Oh, don't sweat it, kiddo.  It wasn't your fault.'

                                                            _Lie!_

"You played great, honey."

                                                            **_LIE!_**

It's a tough way to live life

            But do you know what's worse than  knowing the difference between who's innocent and who's guilty, who's lying and who's not?  Knowing and not being able to do anything about it.  I've watched mourning husbands go to prison for crimes of passion they didn't commit.  I've watched guilty black-widows get off scott free because of expensive lawyers and counter suits, tampered evidence and bribes.  

            But how are you supposed to tell a judge 'Oh, he's not guilty, I can tell by his aura.  It's his brother's who's lying about where he was'?  That doesn't go over very well…trust me, I've tried.  That's why I've been transferred between three departments in the last five years.  People eventually start to think I'm crazy…or they start to realize the truth.  Either way, it means another move for me.

            It's hard to put down roots, me being who I am.

            What I am…

            I was surprised out of my depressive stupor by something coming down across my shoulders.  

            "Thought you might be cold," Avery said, draping my retrieved coat down my back and handing me a steaming Styrofoam cup.  "Straight black, just the way you like it."  Avery's been my partner since I came to work for the Boston chapter about a year ago, just after my promotion to detective, and I've never had a harder time working with someone.  Not because he's difficult or nasty or anything.  No, actually it's the exact opposite: he's one of the nicest guy's I ever met.

            See, partners are supposed to be able to read each other.  To be able to judge one another's moods and temperaments.  We're supposed to be close.  But I can't get close…and I hate lying to Avery.  But I can't keep doing it.  I can't keep moving.

            "Tough case," he said, stirring his own coffee and looking out at the street.  "You've been going at it too hard.  Maybe you should-"

            "I don't need any time off," I interrupted.  "Not yet.  We're so close."  Avery sipped at his coffee, looking thoughtful.

            "We might not be as close as we think.  Just because no one can confirm Jones's alibi doesn't mean he's lying."  More silence, sipping…

            "Yes…he is."  Avery shot me a wry glance over the top of his cup.  I looked away.

            "'Nother hunch, Viv?"  I nodded.  Avery drained the last of his coffee and crushed the cup under his foot, tossing it into the dumpster behind us.  "Tell ya what, let me go in, dig out some files.  See if I can't hold him here on an outstanding parking ticket or something.  Then, when you're up to it, you can have another go at him, see if you can't crack him."  And with that being said, he walked away, back into the precinct to do what he said he would.  I knew.  I always know when Avery's lying.

            Avery never lies.

            I considering chasing after him, thanking him for finding my coat and believing in me and all that.  But there'd be time for that later.  Right now, I just needed a moment to myself.  I scanned the bleak march sky, watching a few stray snowflakes started to drift down.  One dropped onto my nose, melting into a glistening water droplet, indistinguishable from the tears fresh on my cheeks.  I wiped them all away.

            I'm meant to do this job, I know it.  It's been my calling all my life.  It's just so hard sometimes.  But then again, life is hard so who am I to complain?  It's just…sometimes I wish I could see all the gray in the world.

            It would make the black a little easier to bear.

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A/N: Yeah, this one was depressing and deep, I know.  Expect more humor next entry.  Now, go and review.  Please…Please?  Pretty please with a sugar coated bunny on top?


	3. Where Dreams Go To Die

A/N:  Hey ya'all, been a while since my last update, I know.  What can I say, school had me a little distracted.  This chapter wasn't supposed to be up first.  I had another one I was going to put up first, but this one just got completed earlier.  It's a little deep, but next one involves frat parties, so don't give up on me.  Now, go read and review.  Make my day!

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            I've been locked in here for as long as I can remember.

            Maybe even longer.  

            The view from the lounge is amazing…well, to me it is.  The nurses aren't that fond on it.  But they're jaded, they experience the world everyday.  Their shift ends and they leave this cloistered sanctuary, get swept up in nitty-gritty, fantastical, elbow rubbing life.  We…I don't.

            All my life I've been an observer.  When I'm awake I sit in front of this window, for hours upon hours.  I sit, watching the world rush past me, never stopping, never pausing, never looking up and noticing my small face in a sea of glass plating.  I watch them, but they don't watch me.  Oh what I wouldn't give to break through these walls, storm out of here and take one breath of city air. Breath in the smells and touches and tastes so different from those of my sterile prison.  If just for one second, one moment, I could be free, then that might just be enough.

            Might.  

            I didn't used to be so bad in here.  I had books and television privileges.  I would spend hours combing the library, putting my newly acquired reading skills to work.  At night I'd take command of the community room's little TV, viewing everything from cartoons to I Love Lucy reruns.  But that didn't last long.  My family came for a visitation day…back then those didn't used to be so few and far between.  But anyway.  They came, and found that my 'eccentric' behavior wasn't any better than before.  They wanted the staff to do something about it.  They though that too much creative stimulation was fodder for my emotionally troubled fire.

            The staff jumped to meet my family's request.  After all, receiving a check as big as the one my father made out when I was admitted…well, that'll get you _real_ service.  So they cut me off, cold turkey.  No more reading, none.  Only my textbooks, and even then, only selected passages.  TV, not anymore either.  Just the occasional History channel documentary.  So the four walls I lived between got closer together, and the window became my favorite pastime.  

            Maybe if I'd been a little older, not so young and naive, I'd have kept quiet.  I wouldn't have broadcasted my abilities so outrageously.  I might have been able to fake a 'recovery' and have been out of here and back at home where I belong.  But children can't often see the consequences of their actions very clearly.  I was not exception.  And because of it, I would rot in here forever.

            And I wasn't even ill.

            There was a soft 'buuzzzzzzz' that resonated through the floor and walls, a noise you wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't known in was coming.  Late shift change.  Below me I watched a nurse carefully cross the street, heading for the parking garage down the block.  

            Heading home, to her family. 

            Lucky bitch.

            "You still up?" came a sharp voice, echoing across the empty room behind me.  I sighed deeply.

            "Aren't I always?" a snicker emerged from my companion.  I didn't turn; I didn't have to.

            "Yeah, Alexa, you are.  Which is why your meds are scheduled for now."  A pale hand held it a small paper cup over my shoulder, jiggling it slightly.  The pills inside clicked together gently.  I pushed the skeletal hand away with my own ebony colored one.  "Alex…"  Warning tone.  I was unfazed.

            "I'm not taking those," I sulked, eyes still focused out the window.  "I don't need 'em."  The voice from behind sighed deeply.

            "I know that better than anyone else here, hun," it cajoled.  "But unfortunately, it's not up to you or I."  *Jiggle…jiggle*  I sighed again sullenly, but after a few seconds I snatched up the cup and downed the medication in one, swift motion, downing them without water.  I handed the cup back to the hand behind me.

            "Show me," the voice commanded.  I whirled and stuck out my tongue, showing it to the skinny, wraith of a young woman behind me.  I wasn't being rude, though.  I was proving that I hadn't tongued my meds, er…hidden them under my tongue rather than taking them.  Satisfied that all was in order, she grinned.  It wasn't the most appealing look for her malnourished face.  "Thanks hun."  She reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, leaning over me and glancing outside.  "Anything good on the window tonight?"  I liked Lisa Ancheckb, she's better than the rest of the nurses here.  That's one of the reasons I like nights so much.  _One_ of the reasons…

            She at least acted like she gave a damn about the people behind the patients, not just the charts and diagnoses and medical conditions.  She was only a few years older than I, and in a different time, a different life, maybe we'd have been peers.  Friends.  She's kind but surprisingly tough for someone so small.  There were rumors circulating amongst the nurses here when she first came on staff that she was anorexic.  But the nurses treated one another with the same disregard that they did patients.  They never took the time to get to know the real Lisa.  Maybe if they had, like me, they'd have better understood the poor thing.  Maybe she would've even open up to them about her _condition_.  Maybe…I live in a world of maybes.    

            "Working girl out there looks pretty cold," I muttered quietly.  Just like Mary Magdalene.  That's the only reason I knew what a hooker was.  The Bible was the only book I was allowed to read in my free time now.  "Wish someone would bring her a cup off coffee every now and then.  Or at least notice her."  Lisa snorted in distain.

            "I have a hard time feeling sorry for her," she said, drawing up and empty chair and planting it next to the window seat.  "She made that choice herself."  Lisa worked her way through school.  She's a big believer in the rags to riches story; she's lived it.  

            "Yeah…"  A moment of silence before Lisa asked,

            "So…have you ever, you know," she tapped here temple symbolically and jerked her head towards the window, "her?"  I didn't answer for another moment.

            "You know, despite what her job title implies, there's very little sleeping that goes on."  Okay, so maybe that came out a little bit cynical, but can you blame me?  Talking about why I'm here tends to make me edgy.  The silence persisted for another few minutes as I watched the girl on the corner pace back and forth, her breath shining up in a mist around her.  Finally though,

            "Why did you become a nurse?" I asked, my voice reverberating about the room.  Lisa contemplated that question for a moment.

            "I guess…" she began, "well, I had so much secondhand experience already, I wanted to give something back, ya know?"

            "Yeah, I know."  Another long silence,

            "So, why so quiet tonight?" she asked me, looking at me, slightly worried.  "You don't seem yourself."  She was right, I was acting odd…odd for me, at least.  "You might as well tell me.  'A problem shared is a problem solved'," she quoted off a plaque that hung in the head nurse's office.  I snickered sadly.

            "I have another appointment tomorrow," I confessed.  From anyone else in this place I would have gotten the sympathy sigh, but not Lisa.  She knew better.  The only pity I accepted was from myself.  Instead I got the 'deep thought' discussion.

            "You know, maybe if you just downplayed your…natural gifts a little, faked it out for a while, they'd let you out."  I shook my head sadly.  

            "No, they wouldn't."

            "Bu-," she began, but I cut her off.

            "I was so messed up as a kid that my family wouldn't take me back for all the money in the world.  Bad publicity," I explained logically.  "And the doctors are so into what I do that they won't let me leave anyways."  I sighed deeply.  "I'm not going to get out of here, hun.  Any chance that I will is just a lie.  A beautiful lie, but a lie nonetheless." 

            "Well, at least I know you're not crazy."  That forced a light chuckle from my lips.  

            "Yeah, thanks."  I was still glaring out the window, but I heard Lisa get up to leave.  She padded away softly when I suddenly remembered.

            "Hey," I called, whirling around.  She paused in the doorway and glanced back.  "How was your appointment?"  She smiled a little sadly at my question.

            "You remembered."

            "Have I ever forgotten?" I asked a little more brightly.  Her smiled grew a little.

            "No…no you haven't.  I'm up two pounds," she said happily, as she should have been.  "better absorption count than last month's too."

            "See," I said, waggling a finger in her direction.  "I told you Milky Way's were the way to go, didn't I?"  Oh God, what I would have given for some chocolate at that very moment.

            "What can I say, you were right?" she chirped.  Then, reaching her hand inside her white lab coat, she walked back over to me.  "And I got you something too."  She shoved the brightly colored comic book into my willing hands.  "Bros say this is a good issue."  I took it greedily and slipped in under my sweatshirt.  

            "Thanks Lis, I owe you owe."  I patted my package comfortingly.  She just shook her head and made her way back out the door.

            "No, were even."

            Lisa has been smuggling me in things to read from day one, particularly her younger brother's comic books, mostly because they're easy to hide and…well, smuggle.  She's known, from our first meeting, that I was different from all the other patients in here.  That all this was the result of a horrible misunderstanding.  She was the person who treated me like an equal.  Not like a psycho, not like a nut job, but like the mutant that I am.

            Yeah, that's right, I'm a mutant.  Want to know something terribly sad?  My parents know that, they know I'm not crazy, and they don't care.  I'm less of a liability in here.  No way for the press to get a hold of the fact that the Conservative Republican Governor's daughter is a mutant if she's in an institution being treated for her crippling depression and psychosis.  Not to mention her insomnia.  As a child I had them baffled.  I was awake all night, or I'd wake talking about different people's dreams.  They couldn't put two and two together the way the doctor's did, the way Lisa did.

            When I sleep, I don't dream.  Ever.  Instead I get sucked into the dreams of others, usually those closet, physically, to me.  I can manipulate them, though it's difficult to do so, and watch them unfold.  I feel the emotions the dreamer feels, sense the significance of the images and sounds and shapes playing out in their minds.  

            It's horrible.  Especially in this place, where so many dreams are messed up memories of pain and violation.  I'd give anything to make this curse go away, but I could wish on every star in the sky and it wouldn't make one bit of difference.

            Sometimes I imagine that I'm a character out of one of Lisa's comics.  My cool name would be DreamCatcher and, despite my ridiculously weak power, I would somehow come through and manage to save the day.  People would look up to me.

            My family wouldn't be ashamed to be seen with me.

            Another beautiful lie…

            If only I could dream it.

            I watched as a red truck circled the block outside a stopped by the corner.  The hooker made her way over to the door and got in, rubbing her hands together for warmth.  Strangely, I wished that one night she might just dose off there on the street corner and let me get a peek.  So I could see what had created the life that made mine seem so much better.  The truck peeled out into the night, racing along.

            'Well,' I thought to myself, 'at least she'll be warm for a while.'  Suddenly the night seemed so much emptier.  It was like Lisa and the girl and I had been the only ones left alive.  And what a crowd we made.

            A hooker, working for her meals.

            A mutant, locked in the nuthouse for her genetic makeup.

            And the nurse, battling cystic fibrosis while she was busy healing others.

            What a crowd indeed.   

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A/N: Review, please :)


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